“Please,” she added.
For a few seconds, they all held their breath. Then, just when Poppy was beginning to feel very foolish, they heard something.
It was a series of light, steady thumps … as if someone—or something—was climbing the stairs.
Poppy, Will, and Franny watched in frozen horror as the doorknob turned ever so slowly. They could hear the sound of breathing as the door opened an inch. There was a long, mournful creak of the hinges. Then the door was flung open and a dark figure stood framed in the doorway.
Chapter ELEVEN
“Rolly!” Franny’s voice was sharp with a combination of fear and annoyance. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m just trying to see what you guys are doing,” Rolly said. “I heard you sneak up here without me.”
Will slumped back in his chair. “We weren’t trying to leave you out of anything. We thought you were asleep. You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“Well, I’m not.” Rolly focused his beady eyes on the candle. “So what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Let me take you downstairs and tuck you in,” Poppy suggested. “You really should be in bed.”
“Why?”
“You need your sleep.”
“Why?”
“Because little boys need sleep so they can grow into big boys,” Franny said.
“I don’t. I don’t need to sleep at all,” he said, climbing up on a chair. “Not ever.”
“Oh, let him stay,” said Poppy. “Nothing’s going to happen anyway.”
Franny lowered her voice. “But what if it does? It could traumatize him. He could be emotionally scarred for life.”
“Nothing short of an alien invasion will upset Rolly,” said Poppy. “And maybe not even that.”
“Are you trying to talk to a ghost?” asked Rolly. “I could help.”
“You’re too little,” said Franny.
“You’ll get scared,” said Will.
Rolly’s lower lip jutted out. “I won’t! You’re just trying to get rid of me. I don’t believe there’s a ghost here at all!”
The temperature dropped in an instant until the attic room was as chilly as a winter dawn. The candle flame sputtered and dipped in an icy draft. The sound of laughter—a boy’s laugh—echoed from the walls.
Poppy dimly heard Franny say, “Oh, great. Now we’ll never get to bed,” but she wasn’t paying much attention. Her gaze was fixed on a corner of the attic room, where a misty shape was forming.
At first it looked like a patch of fog that had somehow lost its way. It was supposed to be somewhere on the moors of England, looking romantic and desolate in the moonlight. Instead, it was here, inside an attic in Texas.
The fog floated closer to the table where they were sitting.
Poppy felt the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand up. A chill raced over her skin as she watched the swirling fog gradually firm up into the shape of a person.
“Look,” she whispered, shivering.
“Look at what?” asked Franny. “You said it yourself, Poppy. That could just be water vapor.” Despite Franny’s words, Poppy could see her hands shaking.
“Franny’s right,” said Will, trying to sound brave. “That—that doesn’t look like much of anything. Wouldn’t a ghost have more … I don’t know … presence?”
“Not necessarily,” Poppy replied. She could feel her heart beating faster, but she tried to keep her voice calm and even. “Remember Mrs. Zimmerman. She first appeared as a tiny orb of light. Professor Wilson thought she was a firefly.”
“If we had a dog, its fur would stand on end,” Rolly said casually. “We would know if we had a ghost if we had a dog.”
They had been speaking in hushed voices, but this broke the spell.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rolly,” Franny said crossly. “Forget the dog! Honestly, you’re becoming obsessed.”
The fog glided a little closer.
Poppy reached for the magnetometer. “The fluctuations are going crazy,” she reported.
The fog shimmered a little, as if pleased.
“I’ve had enough of this!” Franny said, her voice shrill. “You can all hang around to see if there’s some ghoul in the attic, but I’m going back to bed.”
She turned to leave, but the foggy shape slid around her so that it stood between her and the attic door.
“Look at the way it moved around you! It’s almost as if it understood what you said!” Poppy jotted down a note in her logbook. “That could be a sign of intention and intelligence. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but—”
“For heaven’s sake, stop talking and get it away from me!” Panicked, Franny backed up, right into a coatrack where Mrs. Malone had hung all their winter coats.
Franny, of course, didn’t remember that. She only knew that she suddenly felt what seemed to be woolly arms clutching at her. She shrieked, then whirled around and began batting at the coats, as if to beat them into submission.
“Be quiet!” Will snapped. “And stop fighting with the coatrack.”
The little patch of fog now moved closer to the table.
A voice said, “Don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.” It sounded like a boy.
Franny turned on Will. “That’s not funny!” she snapped.
“What are you talking about?” asked Will.
“Throwing your voice like that,” she said. “I told Mom not to give you that book about ventriloquism for your birthday!”
Will said, “But I’m not—”
“Look,” Rolly said.
The Malones watched with fascination as the foggy shape slowly became even more solid.
First the arms and legs appeared. The shape lifted its right arm, as if practicing a movement it had almost forgotten. Then it lifted its left arm. Then it took a step toward them.
“I don’t like this,” Franny whispered. “I don’t like it at all.”
The shape turned in her direction.
“That’s good,” Poppy said, writing furiously in her notebook. “It’s responding to your voice. Keep talking, Franny.”
Franny whirled around to glare at her. “Are you insane?” she snapped.
Poppy looked up, surprised. “No, of course not,” she said. “I’m a—”
“Scientist! I know, I know! We all know you’re a scientist!” Franny’s voice was becoming hysterical. “Now stop being so scientific for just one second, Poppy, and look!”
She flung out her hand to point to the shape, which had now developed a shock of hair (light brown and messy).
As Poppy, Will, Rolly, and Franny watched, a snub nose appeared, followed by a scattering of freckles. Then, between one breath and the next, a pair of mischievous green eyes and a wide, grinning mouth emerged from the fog and they found they were staring at … a boy.
Of course, they knew that what they were seeing was really the ghost of a boy, but he looked entirely real and alive (except for a slight tendency to be transparent).
The ghost wore a faded T-shirt, dirty khaki shorts, and sneakers with holes in the toes. He had scabs on both knees and one elbow, a smear of dirt on his face, and a bandage around one finger. He looked like the kind of boy who fell out of trees and crashed his bike on a regular basis.
“Hi,” he said, grinning at them. “Pretty nifty materialization, huh?”
Poppy, Will, and Franny stared at him, their mouths hanging open. Even Rolly drew his eyebrows together slightly, the closest he came to displaying extreme emotion.
Finally Poppy managed to say, in a strangled voice, “Um, yes. Very … impressive.”
Rolly walked up to the ghost and gave him a long, unblinking look.
“Why did you come to our house?” he asked.
The ghost looked surprised. “You invited me. Or at least, he did.” He nodded at Will.
“I didn’t!” said Will.
“Yes, you did! I heard you!” The ghost sat on the edge of a table, his feet swinging
in the air, and looked with interest at the various pieces of equipment scattered on its surface. “You called me by name. You said, ‘Travis Clay Smith, if you’re here, let us know. Come forth and let us see you.’ Those were your exact words. So. Here I am.”
He pulled his feet up to sit cross-legged on the table. “I would have materialized earlier, but I’m a little out of practice,” he went on chattily. “I tried to make my presence felt, though.”
The shadow slipping along the floor, Poppy suddenly realized. The movement at the corner of my eye …
“Like, this morning, in the kitchen?” Travis went on. “Your mom walked right through me! She even felt the cold spot, but she thought someone had left the refrigerator open. Then I knocked the oatmeal off the stove—”
“That was you? I had to clean that up,” said Franny, indignant enough to forget her fear for a moment. “And it was disgusting.”
“Sorry,” Travis said, not sounding sorry at all. “I thought you’d figure out you had a ghost a long time ago. I mean, I wasn’t exactly being subtle about it. But I guess you’re not as observant as I thought you’d be—”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Poppy, ruffled enough in turn to forget that she was talking to a ghost. “I’m a scientist. And science is all about honing your observational skills so that you notice the slightest anomalies, then developing theories to account for the anomalies, then testing those theories through rigorously controlled experiments, which you then observe to see how well they work. Science is all about observation!”
Travis raised an eyebrow, then turned to Will, “Does she always go on like this?”
“Well, yeah.” Will actually grinned a little. “Pretty much.”
Travis’s gaze fell on the video camera on the table. “Hey, what is this thing? I saw your father using it out at the cemetery.” He picked it up and started fiddling with the buttons.
“Stop that,” Franny snapped. “You’ll break it.”
“No, I won’t,” Travis said. He tried to put the camera down on the table, but missed the edge by several inches. The camera fell to the ground with an expensive-sounding crash.
“Oops.” He gave an apologetic shrug, then added cheerfully, “I guess I need to get used to moving objects again. It’s not as easy as it looks, especially when you’re as insubstantial as I am. On the other hand, it does make moving around a lot easier. See?”
He rose up into the air, still in his cross-legged position, and floated over to the window. “Hey, one of your neighbors has their own swimming pool. That’s pretty neat. Boy, I’d love to be able to go swimming again.”
While Travis was peering out the window, Franny turned on Will.
“See? I told you. This is all your fault!” she hissed.
“Quit trying to blame everything on me,” said Will. “If anything, it’s Poppy’s fault. She was the one who made me put my hand on that gravestone.”
“I didn’t make you—” Poppy began.
“You dared me. That’s the same thing.”
“I didn’t dare you to say anything,” she whispered. “That was your bright idea.”
Franny moved closer to Poppy so that they stood shoulder to shoulder, staring Will down. After several seconds, he gave in, throwing up his hands.
“Fine,” he said. “So I accidentally invited a ghost home. These things happen. The question is, what do we do now?”
“Obviously, we have to get him out of here,” said Franny.
“Why?” Rolly asked. “He seems nice. I like him.”
“You would,” Franny said. “He breaks things, annoys people, and makes life unnecessarily complicated. You’ve clearly found your soul mate.”
“Excuse me,” said Travis. “I’m right here, you know.”
They turned to stare at Travis again.
“That’s right, you are,” said Poppy, who was beginning to get an idea. It was, she thought, a very good idea. Potentially even a brilliant one.
Here was her chance to conduct a real investigation that resulted in real evidence, not just misty photos or murky sound recordings. She would prove the existence of ghosts, save her parents’ grant, and earn her family’s undying gratitude.
“How did you make such an amazing discovery before you even entered middle school?” an astonished Mrs. Farley would ask after Poppy’s presentation. Then she would tell her nefarious nephew to extend the Malones’ grant in perpetuity.
“Thank goodness for your logical and scientific mind,” her father would say, beaming with pride. “Without that, we would have been lost!”
“Don’t tell the others,” her mother would add in a whisper, “but I do believe that you are the cleverest member of our family. The cleverest by far.”
Poppy would simply smile modestly. “All it took was a little logical thinking and deductive reasoning,” she would say as she accepted the Nobel Prize, the youngest person ever to win it....
This lovely daydream was interrupted by Franny, who was asking Travis questions by speaking extremely slowly and loudly.
“Do you have Unfinished Business?” she said. “Do you know that you’ve Passed On?”
He gave her a scornful look. “What do I look like, some kind of dimwit?”
Franny ignored this. “Is there a reason you can’t rest? An unresolved issue that keeps you walking the earth?”
Travis tilted his head to one side, as if thinking this over. A fleeting expression crossed his face.
The corner of Travis’s mouth turned up, ever so slightly, into a sly smile. His eyes narrowed into emerald green slits. Even his freckles somehow managed to look secretly delighted.
It was the look of a ghost that has just had an idea.
But what kind of idea, Poppy wondered, would make a ghost look like that?
“Oh, I get it. You want to help me resolve my issues so I’ll Move On, right?” Travis stopped hovering in midair, letting his feet drop to the floor with a thump. He shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away from them, his head drooping, his shoulders slumped. “Well, if you don’t want me around, I’ll just head on back to the cemetery and you won’t be bothered by me again.”
Poppy saw Travis give them a quick glance from the corner of his eye before adding, “Of course, that means you won’t get the evidence you need for Mrs. Farley....”
He began to fade right before their eyes.
Poppy felt her stomach clench in panic. Her dreams of saving their grant (and of winning the Nobel Prize) seemed to fade along with him.
“No, wait!” Poppy, Franny, and Will yelled.
“Where are you going?” asked Rolly.
Travis still looked miffed, but he stopped fading.
Poppy asked, “How did you know about the grant and Mrs. Farley?”
“Like I said,” Travis replied. “I’ve been hanging around your house.”
Franny gasped. “You were eavesdropping?”
He shrugged. “What else is there for ghosts to do? I know that Rolly wants a dog and that your father won’t get him one. I know that your parents might lose their grant and that if they do you might have to move. And I know that Poppy reads in bed with a flashlight when she’s supposed to be asleep and Will drinks milk out of the carton when no one’s looking and Franny—”
“You’d better stop right there,” said Franny in a dangerous voice. “If you know what’s good for you.”
Travis chuckled. “My older sister was just like you,” he said reminiscently. “I could always make her mad, too.”
Franny opened her mouth as if to say something, and he hurried on. “Anyway, if you come out to the cemetery tomorrow, well”—he lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug—“maybe my friends and I can help you.”
He gave Rolly a sly glance. “One of my friends,” he added, “is a dog.”
Rolly’s head swiveled toward Poppy. “Let’s go,” he said. “I want to go right now.”
“Hold on, Rolly,” she said. “We can’t head out to the cemeter
y in the middle of the night.” She gave Travis a considering look. “We might be able to make it tomorrow—”
“This is so not a good idea,” Franny murmured.
“Think about it, Franny,” Poppy said, without taking her eyes off Travis. “What if he could help us get evidence to show Mrs. Farley?”
“Wait a second.” Will looked at Travis. “Who are these ‘friends’ you’re talking about?”
“Come to the cemetery and find out,” said Travis. He paused, then added smoothly, “Unless you’re afraid, of course.”
Will flushed. “I’m not afraid of anything!” He nodded at Poppy. “You’re right. We should go.”
“Good.” As Travis grinned at him, the outline of his body flickered and his voice grew fainter. “I have to go … come tomorrow … don’t forget....”
“We won’t,” said Poppy. “We’ll be there. I promise.”
She felt a thrill of excitement as she realized what she was saying. Tomorrow they would get the evidence they needed to save the grant and stay in their house! It would only take an hour or two to film Travis and any other ghosts he might be friends with. By suppertime, they would be safe.
But then, just as Travis flickered out of sight, she caught a glimpse of Travis’s face. It wore the same sly expression she had seen earlier.
Poppy suddenly remembered the lecture that her parents insisted on giving them before every investigation.
“The number one rule of any paranormal investigation is this: Keep your guard up and stay alert at all times,” Mr. Malone would say.
“Your father’s quite right,” Mrs. Malone would add. “Of course you know that vampires are masters of manipulation; I’ve warned you all about that often enough. But other creatures also have tricky ways of getting what they want. The Faerie, for example, are always incredibly charming, right up until the moment they steal your soul. Even boggarts can be beguiling when they put their minds to it.”
“Remember,” Mr. Malone would always finish up, “there’s a reason people have always been afraid of the dark....”
Chapter TWELVE
By morning, Poppy’s fears had vanished, as so many nighttime fears do. She bounded down the stairs to the kitchen, eager to head back out to the Shady Rest Cemetery and start gathering evidence that ghosts really exist, only to find that Mr. and Mrs. Malone’s plans had shifted again.
A Gust of Ghosts Page 8